Well... maybe I won't be picking it up after all. I had hoped for more interesting extras. I'm sure I can get the Godfrey Cheshire essay from their site once it's released. The interview with Kiarostami isn't enough for me to spend another 20 or 30 bucks. And I doubt the image is going to be that much richer than what I already have. I wonder if the subtitles will be significantly different.

Well... maybe I won't be picking it up after all. I had hoped for more interesting extras. I'm sure I can get the Godfrey Cheshire essay from their site once it's released. The interview with Kiarostami isn't enough for me to spend another 20 or 30 bucks. And I doubt the image is going to be that much richer than what I already have. I wonder if the subtitles will be significantly different.

I was going to say the same thing. I'm pretty underwhelmed. Not a fan of the cover art either. Given how gorgeously photographed it is and how rich the story is, I'm not sure why they went with something so drab, even if the mirroring aspect makes thematic sense.

Not a fan of the cover art either. Given how gorgeously photographed it is and how rich the story is, I'm not sure why they went with something so drab, even if the mirroring aspect makes thematic sense.

I was also initially underwhelmed, but then I went back and checked on Netflix and...yep. It's modeled on the cover of the James Miller's book (as seen propped up on the table at the beginning of the film). Still looks too much like a textbook to me, even if that's the point.

Heck, they could carry this farther. They could market an exact copy of the region-free blu-ray I already have and it could be passed off as some kind of high-concept "special edition" that contributes to the film's discussion about originals and copies.

Heck, they could carry this farther. They could market an exact copy of the region-free blu-ray I already have and it could be passed off as some kind of high-concept "special edition" that contributes to the film's discussion about originals and copies.

The first thing that strikes me is the incredible naturalism of it. I'm not sure where else I've seen such realistic conversations in a film. Maybe in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Nowhere else that I can think of. The cafe sequence is amazing. A friend whom I watched the film with pointed out that Kiarostami gave himself two escape routes in that scene--the offscreen customer calling for wine and another beat that escapes me at the moment--where most writers would have brought the conversation to an abrupt end and immediately brought James back inside. Instead, Elle and the barista go on talking and bring their scene to a gracious close, at which point James comes back in and things continue seamlessly. It seems telling, that Kiarostami eschews even such small and harmless conventions as these when they would interfere with perfect truth to life.

I also loved the scene where they're arguing about the statue in the courtyard. When Elle goes off to ask someone's opinion of the statue, James is left impatiently waiting between an old stone wall and a motorcycle. (A wonderful image in itself.) After a minute, I noticed you could just make out a tiny image of the statue and the activity around it in the motorcycle's side mirror. I stared at that in fascination for a few moments, before noticing that what I had thought was an archway behind him was actually a large mirror, and you could see a much better view there. It's a fascinating shot. But the statue itself, we never quite get a full, clear view of, especially not the faces that are the main point of debate. Instead, all we can do is listen to these people discuss their perceptions of other people we never see and whether it's possible to really know them, and wonder all the while whether we can know James and Elle themselves, whose faces we see so much of, any better.

I loved the parallelism of the extended closeups of Elle and James looking in an (unseen) mirror. I also love what the cinematography does with sunlight. The film takes place in such a bright, richly textured world, with things shining and reflecting and catching light in funny ways all over the place. But we also keep retreating to various indoor scenes that get darker and darker, yet with the sunbeams intruding more and more insistently, culminating in that luminously dim hotel room.

I struggle to disentangle Certified Copy in my mind from Before Sunset, which both the opening and closing scenes reminded me of so strongly I suspect it was deliberate. They're clearly different films with different morals, but I don't know if it makes sense to read one as a response to the other. I feel that if I go down that rabbit hole I'll soon be lost in a warren of my own digging.

More later, perhaps, after I see it again and read some more of the links in this thread.